


MALUM

by hereruha



Category: Jrock, the GazettE
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Future, Angst, Drama, Dystopia, M/M, Oracles, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Nuclear Catastrophe, Romance, Smut, Supernatural - Freeform, Supernatural Elements, Yaoi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2018-10-26 07:54:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,416
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10782675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereruha/pseuds/hereruha
Summary: A nuclear catastrophe completely changed the face of the Earth hundreds of years ago. Now, the descendents of the survivors live in trees, giant monsters of glass and steel, the only places unaffected by the radiations. However, something pushes two young adults to flee this so-called safe haven, taking away with them at the same time what the government seems to value the most.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a native speaker.

_“Your attention please. From 9 o’clock onwards, people from the fourth district are requested to stay inside their homes.”_

A brunet glanced at his raven-haired friend as the announcement was made. This was weird, announcements like these weren’t common, and that it was directed to the fourth district was even more unusual.

“What do you think this is about?” asked the raven, frowning slightly as he looked up at the sky.

“I don’t know,” replied the brunet, standing up from the bench they’d been sitting on. “Normally it only happens when they’re in need of an oracle, but they just took one in three months ago.”

“Well, you know that was unexpected too... We’ve had five different oracles in less than two years,” mumbled the other, looking down at his trembling hands.

“Yuu, there’s no need to worry.”

The brunet turned to his best friend and patted his shoulder, smiling faintly. He could say not to worry as many times as he wanted, Yuu was still a potential oracle, and there was no way to change that. So far the raven had been lucky enough not to be picked, but there seemed to be something going on. Oracles usually lived like anyone else, meaning that Yuu and him should have known only one, maybe two oracles, but never six. He couldn’t help but wonder what the government was up to. A lot of things didn’t make sense. Oracles seemed to die prematurely, their bodies weren’t returned to their families even if that was the tradition, and no explanation was given.

“You don’t believe it yourself, Yutaka,” sighed the raven, standing up as well. “You know I might be chosen this time.”

“I know, but there are still other ones like you.”

“How many? Haven’t you noticed that more and more people in the district are disappearing? Not only our age, but also children. There’s something going on in there, it’s not normal for children to be taken away,” groaned Yuu, glaring at the trunk of the tree.

“I know that Yuu, but what do you want me to say?” sighed the brunet, looking out through the glass that made the fourth district’s branch.

The sun was setting far in the west, a rare sight since the nuclear catastrophe that happened centuries ago. Yutaka had always wondered what it was like to live on the outside. All he could see were forests and lakes, and far in the distance he could make out the figure of another tree, probably similar to the one he lived in. A sort of monster made of glass.

From the books that their ancestors had taken with them when they moved in what was considered at the time as safehouses, trees actually quite looked like the glass buildings that could be seen in big cities such as Tokyo and New York in the past. Trees were just way bigger, and in the shape of an oak most of the time. Nowadays though, compared to a building from another time, a single tree housed thousands of people. They had been developed in such a way that it looked like a city made of several layers, those layers being the branches. There were houses the same way there would have been some in the past, the difference being that people were kept in a sort of bubble and it was strictly forbidden to go outside.

“Have you ever wondered what happened to Takanori?”

The brunet froze when he heard his best friend’s question.

“One day we played with him, the next day his mother told us that he couldn’t anymore. Have you ever thought about what truly happened to him?” continued Yuu, slouching on the bench.

Of course Yutaka had thought about Takanori. He did every day, after all the boy’s house was down his street, he walked past it all the time.

“We were children, Yuu, nothing was happening at the time. It’s been ten years since then, we should get over it,” sighed the brunet, glancing at the raven from the corner of the eye.

He knew the way he said it could sound harsh, but it was the truth, they had to move on. Their friend had vanished, they couldn’t do anything about it, especially not ten years after.

“He would be fifteen now. What if he’s in there, with all the others? What if he actually was the first one to never come back?”

Yutaka shook his head, at a loss for words. Takanori was like a little brother to them when they were children. Yuu and Yutaka were eight and Takanori was only five when he suddenly disappeared. The brunet perfectly remembered how him and Yuu had kept on asking about their younger friend for months. They would go to his house every day and would ask his mother if the small boy was finally back. Now that Yutaka thought about it, Takanori’s mother seemed in grief at the time, but nor him or Yuu could have picked up on that, they weren’t old enough to understand.

“Five is still quite a young age for an oracle, Yuu,” quietly said Yutaka. “He probably didn’t even have visions at the time, they usually come around the age of ten. We actually don’t even know if he was a potential oracle.”

The raven was basing everything on what-ifs, and in the brunet’s mind, that wasn’t good enough to go against the authorities, especially not for someone who probably was dead now. He knew his way of thinking was kind of cold-hearted, but Yutaka had already too many things to worry about to even care about the deads.

“I’ll eventually get chosen, you perfectly know that.”

The brunet groaned and let himself fall on the bench, next to the other.

“I just want to know what’s going on in there, Yutaka,” murmured Yuu, looking down at his entwined fingers.

“And then **_what_**?” snapped the brunet. “What will you do once you know what’s up on the inside? You’ll run away? We can’t do shit in here, Yuu, we’re trapped, and if we go out, we die from exposure to radiation.”

The raven gaped at his best friend, not having expected such an outburst from him. He felt his ears burning as his face turned red, anger slowly rising inside of him too.

“You really have no fucking clue what it’s like to be an oracle, Yutaka,” growled Yuu. “You want my visions? Because I’ll give them to you, and then you’ll see what it’s like to have a bloody target on your back all the time. You’ll see what it’s like to fear the next harvest, feeling your guts twisting in dread, and then feel that disgusting relief wash over you when someone else is picked, because hey, you managed to get yourself a few more years to live.”

Yuu stood up and strode away, clutching at the hem of his sweater. He knew that Yutaka wasn’t wrong, but at the same time the brunet really had no idea what it was like to live like he did. The government made it look like being an oracle was a privilege, that it was a service to the community, that the chosen ones were saviours, but who really believed it? Certainly not those who had the gene. Once you were chosen, you didn’t see anyone anymore, that was at least one thing the raven was sure of. Oracles were completely cloistered away from the rest of the population. Yuu even suspected that they probably weren’t even treated as human beings once in there.

“Yuu, wait!”

He heavily sighed, but still stopped in his tracks to let his friend catch up to him. He wasn’t expecting anything from the brunet, the hug he was pulled into taking him completely off guard.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t understand what good it will do to you to know what they’re really doing.”

The raven slid his hands around the brunet’s waist and hugged him back.

“I’ll be able to prepare myself mentally for what’s awaiting me then,” he mumbled before inhaling the other’s scent. He somehow always smelled like flowers, that perfume always managing to soothe the raven’s nerves.

The brunet looked ahead, pondering the idea of breaking in the restricted area of the tree. It seemed to be the only way to calm down Yuu, but would it really do so? What if what they found out was worse than what they had in mind right now? Than what Yuu had in mind right now?

“What if we first went to Takanori’s house? We haven’t been there in a long time, but I think his mother might talk to us, she knows you might be picked after all,” offered Yutaka, letting go of the raven.

“I’m not sure she will tell us much, but it doesn’t hurt to try, I guess,” sighed Yuu, taking a few steps back.

Yutaka softly smiled at the raven, both of them then making their way to the lift. In fact the brunet was only buying himself some time in order to think about breaking in the restricted area. He was pretty sure Takanori’s mother wouldn’t be able to tell them much, she probably didn’t know anything, but it was the only thing he could think about to stop Yuu from taking any rash decision, fear clouded the raven’s common sense, he just didn’t think straight.

He kept in the defeated sigh that threatened to leave his lips when they reached the fourth district. Walking out of the lift, they were directly met with the sight of immaculate white houses, typical of this district. The more he tried to think of a way to dissuade Yuu from going in the restricted area, the more he realised there was no way to make the raven change his mind. He was too stubborn to give up on finding out what was happening in there. However, the only way Yutaka could think about to get in there without being sent to jail directly wasn’t exactly secure either. He would have to use his father’s password, but the man was out of the brunet’s life, so he couldn’t be sure that the password he knew was still right.

“Good evening Mrs Matsumoto, we’re sorry to bother you now, but would it be possible to talk?”

The brunet was brought back down to earth when he heard Yuu talking. He hadn’t even noticed that they had reached the Matsumotos’ house. He looked at Takanori’s mother and drastically paled when he saw the state the woman was in. She didn’t look like he remembered at all. She still dressed perfectly, sure, but she looked old, older than she truly was, her hair was dishevelled, and her eyes lacked of light, they were empty of any emotion. Yet, she gave them a small smile as she let them in the house.

Both young adults looked around the place, disturbed by the state it was in. It looked like everything had been moved just recently. Any furniture that could have been in the way to the front door had been pushed to the side. Everything seemed out of place.

“I knew Takanori’s house was one of the biggest in the tree, but this isn’t even big, it’s huge,” whispered Yuu to the brunet.

Yutaka could only nod in agreement. As he glanced to his right, he could see the living room, and it was already the size of his house’s first floor, he didn’t want to imagine how big the other rooms were.

“I guess you’re here to talk about my son,” said the black-haired woman, looking at them over her shoulder.

“Well, sort of,” replied Yutaka.

“Follow me, it will be easier to explain if I show you first.”

The raven and the brunet glanced at each other, puzzled, but still went after Takanori’s mother. She led them to the third floor, both of them perfectly aware of where they were going. They knew Takanori’s bedroom used to be on the third floor of his house.

“I’m sorry I kept this away from you for so long, boys, but nobody was supposed to know,” sighed Mrs Matsumoto. “However, I know you’re a potential oracle, Yuu, so I guess you deserve to know what truly happened to Takanori.”

She opened a door and let them in before stepping in after them. Yutaka wasn’t sure this could be called a bedroom to this point. All he could see were medical devices all around the room with one huge king-sized bed in the middle. He slightly frowned as he noticed the crumpled bedsheets, someone had definitely been lying in that bed.

“I never allowed you in the house for a reason,” started the raven-haired woman.

Yuu and Yutaka looked at her. While a frown had twisted the brunet’s face, the raven looked shocked.

“Takanori has always been in the house since that day, ten years ago,” she continued.

“What do you mean?” asked Yuu, disbelief written all over his face. “You’ve locked him up in this house for so long?”

“I didn’t lock him up, Yuu, I didn’t know what was going on until it was too late,” retorted Takanori’s mother, her voice slightly raised.

Yutaka wandered around the room, recognising a few of the devices that were still plugged in. To him there was only one reason for this set-up, but it still didn’t make sense. All these apparatus were usually used to keep someone alive, someone who was in coma most of the time.

“Takanori has been in a comatose state all this time, that’s why I never let anyone in again after that day,” she explained. “They call it the ‘oracle state’, but really, how could my son have been useful to them if he was basically brain dead?” she whispered, her voice quivering.

“Brain dead?” stuttered Yuu, letting himself fall on the bed, his hands shaking uncontrollably.

“And the proof that his state wasn’t normal is that they left him here after they realised something went wrong,” she continued, as if she hadn’t heard the raven young adult.

“Hang on, Takanori was **_five_**  years old, how could they know he was a potential oracle? Nobody shows symptoms before the age of ten,” interrupted Yutaka, turning away from a bloody needle he had just spotted on the nightstand.

Mrs Matsumoto took a frame from the chest of drawers near the door.

“Did he ever tell you about his nightmares?” she asked, staring at the photo of her son.

Yuu and Yutaka glanced at each other. They both perfectly knew what those nightmares truly were, Yuu had them after all, and he had had his first one when he was sleeping over at the brunet’s place.

“He talked about having bad dreams, but as children we didn’t think much of it. It’s normal for children to have nightmares after all,” replied Yuu, staring into space, twisting his hands. “But I know how visions are, they feel real, and whatever it was that he saw... It must have been pretty violent, and traumatising at such a young age.”

“That’s basically how the authorities found out about him being a potential oracle,” sighed the middle-aged woman. “I took him to a doctor and he somehow directly understood that Takanori was having visions, not nightmares.”

Yutaka shook his head in defeat, knowing where this was going.

“A week later he was taken in the restricted area to become the new oracle,” she finished.

A deafening silence overtook the room. Yuu’s ears were ringing, tears welling up in his eyes against his will. Whatever had happened to Takanori in there probably still was happening right now, and the oracles’ bodies weren’t returned to their families for proper funerals because they actually weren’t truly dead. If he was chosen tonight, it would be his fate too.

“But where is he now?” ended up asking Yutaka, staring at the bed.

It really looked like someone had just slept in it, and the brunet was pretty sure that if he touched the bedsheets, he would feel a lingering warmth.

“He was taken, again,” replied Takanori’s mother, laying back the frame on the chest of drawers.

“Why? If he’s brain dead, he’s of no use to the government,” frowned Yuu, clapping his right hand on his mouth when he realised what he had just said.

“I don’t know why, Yuu. When the authorities come and ask something from you, you don’t discuss it, you just obey without a word.”

The raven smiled apologetically.

“Honestly boys, I can only suggest you to run away,” said Mrs Matsumoto, walking out of the room.

“What?” uttered Yutaka in disbelief, following her, Yuu on his heels. “Run away? How? We’ll be dead the moment we set a foot outside of the tree.”

“How do you know that?” retorted the woman, smiling at him mischievously.

Both young adults froze. That oh-so-familiar smile almost boring a hole in their hearts and minds. They could perfectly remember how Takanori would do risky stuff and shot them that smile before going for it. He often ended up hurting himself, but he would always say that it was worth it.

“Just think about it, boys. Although Takanori was taken away today, there will still be a harvest in the fourth district, and the chosen one might as well be you, Yuu,” she said, looking straight into the raven’s obsidian eyes.

The raven looked away from that piercing gaze. The woman’s composure had completely changed between when she had invited them in and now.

“Just be selfish for once and save your lives before it’s too late,” she said as they walked out of the house. “The outside world isn’t as dangerous as the government wants us to believe.”

She closed the door behind them before they had the time to react. Yutaka glanced at Yuu, wondering what the raven had in mind now. They had learnt more than they thought they would by visiting Takanori’s mother, and now they knew how Yuu would eventually finish. Nobody would ever come out of the restricted area, not potential oracles at least.

“We have to get Takanori out of there, and then we’ll leave,” whispered the raven-haired young adult, glaring at the top of the tree, where the government was.

“Yuu...”

“I don’t care what you think, Yutaka, I’m doing this, with or without you.”

The brunet heaved a sigh, running his right hand over his face. There was no way he would let his best friend do this on his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my new fanfic and perhaps a little baby for me, haha. There are already a few chapters ready, but I don't know yet if I'll follow a specific agenda, or if I'll just post when I feel like it. Most likely the second, I don't want to catch up to fast on what I've already written as my exams start in two weeks.
> 
> The title might also be changed. I'm really bad at picking titles so... Yeah.
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♡


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native speaker.

A backpack on his back and a duffel bag thrown over his shoulder, Yutaka was anxiously waiting in front of Yuu’s house while the raven was packing his own belongings. The brunet still couldn’t quite fathom how he had ended up agreeing to breaking in the restricted area and then fleeing the tree, but apparently that was the plan and there was no going back. The only reason he could find to his decision to do it was his affection for the raven, but that was it. He didn’t care much about Takanori, he’d rather directly go to the base of the tree and break their way out rather than risk their liberty, and especially their lives, to save someone who either way was sort of dead. However, Yuu seemed to really want to discover what was going on in there, and the raven was just as stubborn as a mule. There was no way Yutaka could dissuade him, and somehow he couldn’t really blame the other, he probably would want to know too if he were in his shoes.

He looked at his watch and frowned, it was already half past seven, they only had one hour and a half left to get out, otherwise Yuu might be chosen as an oracle this time. Just as Yutaka thought that, the raven opened the front door and hurried down the few steps of his house.

“Sorry, my sister kept on asking what I was doing,” he sighed, running his fingers through his hair.

“Is she going to talk to your mum? Because if she does, we’re fucked, you know that, right?” asked the brunet, starting to walk.

“She’ll keep quiet, she’s just as worried as we are about my fate,” the other replied, following his best friend.

“So?”

“So I think she pretty well understood why I was packing, and I think she’d rather have me go out there than be locked as an oracle,” replied Yuu, rolling his eyes as if the answer was obvious.

“I hope you’re right,” whispered Yutaka, glancing around.

He couldn’t help but wonder if the authorities had restored the security cameras in the district. They were shut down most of the time, turning on only when there was something suspicious happening, for example someone entering the wrong password to a restricted area, but he still couldn’t stop himself from worrying about it. If someone saw them, they’d definitely know they were up to something. Thankfully, most people were already at home, waiting for the authorities to do whatever they’d planned to do by ordering the citizens to stay inside their houses. In Yutaka’s mind there was no doubt that it was yet another harvest, and he was pretty sure everybody thought the same.

The two young adults stopped in front of the lift, glancing at each other. The brunet let out a shaky sigh as he looked at the electronic lock. He was pretty sure his father hadn’t changed his access code, the man didn’t have to, nobody lived with him anymore, but Yutaka still felt anxiety creeping in. Everything was on him, if the code didn’t work, he had no idea how they’d enter without getting caught the moment they stepped in.

“Just do it,” murmured Yuu, his right hand on Yutaka’s shoulder.

“If it doesn’t work, I-”

“It will work, don’t worry about that,” cut him off the raven.

The brunet nodded and slowly typed in the code, holding his breath. As he saw a green light switch on and heard a distinctive _ping_  as the doors opened, his eyes widened. His father really hadn’t changed his code, after **_three fucking years_** , that shithead hadn’t changed his security code. It almost made Yutaka laugh.

“Now hurry, we need to do this as fast as possible,” whispered the raven, keeping the doors open with his hands.

“One hour, we can’t stay more than that inside. If we haven’t found Takanori by then...”

“I know, we can’t risk staying longer just for him,” sighed Yuu, walking inside.

Yutaka knew that the other wasn’t pleased with that, but they had no choice. It was either that, or they ended up in jail, if not worse.

The doors closed behind him as soon as he stepped inside. He blinked a few times as he took in his surroundings. He hadn’t expected it to be so dark, there were a few red lights here and there, but they barely enlightened anything. Moreover both the floor and walls were completely black, slightly shiny. It changed from the outside of the trunk.

“How are we even going to find him in here? We’ve no idea on what floor the oracles are,” grumbled the brunet, smacking his face.

He hadn’t thought about that even one bit. The restricted area went from the roots of the tree up to the top of it.

“They should be around this level, I don’t think the government would want them too far from them,” replied Yuu, deciding to go to the left.

“At least we know where the cars are,” groaned the brunet, listening carefully in case someone came in their direction.

“Don’t be so negative Yutaka,” said the raven, rolling his eyes.

“I just think that we should leave now, what would we even do with Takanori? He’s brain dead,” stated Yutaka.

“For all we know, they might have fooled Mrs Matsumoto. Maybe they put Takanori into an artificial coma and just lied to her,” the other retorted, glaring at his best friend over his shoulder.

The brunet looked away, not replying to that. He hadn’t thought about it, but he should have. Turning right and then walking up a dozen of stairs, he wondered why Takanori would be put into a medically-induced coma instead of being used as an oracle. It made no sense, if he was a real oracle, they didn’t need to actually do such a thing. He understood that the authorities didn’t want any civilian to know what was going on in the inside, but oracles never got out of here alive anyway, so what was the point?

They turned another corner, but Yuu came to a full stop.

“What’s this noise?”

Yutaka stopped in his tracks when he heard Yuu’s question, almost bumping into the raven. He pricked up his ears and frowned, there seemed to be some kind of constant buzzing. As they moved forward, the sound kept on getting louder. It definitely was close by. He noticed further in the hallway that light was coming from what he could only guess was a room. He felt Yuu grasping at his left arm as they kept on walking.

“Do you want me to check what it is before you look?” whispered the brunet, feeling how tensed his best friend was.

“Maybe it would be better that way,” mumbled the raven, looking down at his feet.

He knew he must have looked and sounded weak, but he had a bad feeling. He glanced up at Yutaka’s dark figure as the brunet went ahead without him, peeking round the corner that led to where the light came from. The brunet seemed to freeze for a moment, but he quickly shook his head and then disappeared inside, leaving Yuu alone in the dark hallway, a red light flickering above him. Twisting his hands in dread, the raven waited for his best friend to come back, but it seemed like an eternity had passed and the brunet still hadn’t come out of the room.

“Yutaka..?” whispered the raven, taking a few steps forward.

He could feel his stomach churning. It was his decision to come here, but now he was starting to wonder if it wasn’t wrong. Maybe they really should have left the tree directly. He turned around the corner and froze in his spot, his eyes widening. Yutaka was standing in the middle of the room, surrounded by a dozen of glass coffins.

“What the...” started the raven, but his voice died out as he talked, disbelief and a hint of fear written all over his face.

The brunet spun around when he heard the other, rushing to him.

“Yuu, you should have waited for me to come back!” exclaimed Yutaka, forcing the raven to turn around so he couldn’t look at the coffins.

“You were taking so long,” murmured the other, looking down at his trembling hands.

“I’m sorry, it’s just...”

The brunet couldn’t even find the right words to describe how he felt. All the people in those glass coffins were people he knew, some of them were children who disappeared just like Yuu had pointed out earlier, others were friends. They were all here, seemingly peacefully asleep.

“Are they dead?” asked the raven, risking a glance over his shoulder.

“I don’t think so,” sighed the brunet, walking back to the middle of the room, Yuu following him. “There are medical devices linked to each coffin, it’s like...”

“Like Takanori,” ended the raven, looking around.

Yutaka nodded, walking to one of the coffins in the left corner of the room, near a closed door. So far, out of the thirteen coffins in the room, three were occupied by friends.

“Is that Takeru?” asked Yuu, looking at the coffin near which Yutaka was standing.

“Yeah,” muttered the brunet, looking up at the raven.

The raven looked dejected, probably just like the brunet did. They had suspected that some of their friends were actually locked in here, but it only really dawned on them now.

“We need to get them out of here,” uttered Yuu, looking closely at the medical devices linked to Takeru’s coffin.

“What? Yuu, we can’t do that!”

“You want to leave them behind? In this state?” asked the raven, looking at his best friend with a mix of disgust and disbelief.

“No, of course not,” groaned the brunet, running a hand through his hair. “But we came here for Takanori first, and if we get them all out of here... I’m worried that our families will get in more trouble than they already will be once we've left,” he explained. “We don’t even know how to wake them up anyway.”

“But those are our friends...”

“Yuu, once we’re out of the tree, we will find a way, but right now we cannot think of anyone else but us, and Takanori,” interrupted the brunet. “If we even find him though, because in case you haven’t noticed, he’s not in here.”

Just as he ended his sentence, footsteps could be heard coming from the hallway. Both young adults spontaneously crouched down behind the coffin, although later Yutaka thought that it was ridiculous because everything was in glass and it wouldn’t help them hide in any way.

“You’re two lucky bastards,” chuckled the newcomer, his voice sounding oddly familiar to both Yuu and Yutaka.

They both straightened up, a gasp escaping Yuu’s lips as he saw who was standing in the doorframe. Tall, shoulder-length chestnut-brown hair, dark blue eyes, piercings...

“Kazuki?”

“It’s been a while, you two,” smiled the teenager, walking up to them.

Yutaka observed as the brunet and the raven hugged, frowning slightly as he noticed marks on the taller boy’s arms. He also was confused by how older the brunet looked. He was supposed to be seventeen, but he looked like he was in his early twenties.

When the raven and the brunet pulled away, Yuu could also get a better look at their childhood friend, and just like Yutaka, he was confused by the other’s appearance. He was taller and looked older than he was meant to be. He was gone for eight months, how could he change so much in such a short period of time?

“There are things going on in here that you couldn’t even imagine,” said Kazuki, as if he could read Yuu and Yutaka’s minds.

“What happened to you?” asked Yutaka, folding his arms.

“I’d love to catch up with you guys and explain everything that’s happening in here, but you can’t stay,” sighed the pierced brunet, evading the question. “You’re lucky that nobody’s here for the moment, they’re all getting ready for the harvest.”

Shivers ran down Yuu’s spine, his face going pale, as he met Yutaka’s gaze. They were right, it was indeed another harvest that was taking place tonight.

“You’re taking a big risk coming here, Yuu, someone else could have been in the control room,” continued Kazuki.

“How could you even be in the control room? Aren’t you a potential oracle?” asked Yutaka, looking suspiciously at the other.

Yutaka just couldn’t shake off the feeling that something was odd. Why wasn’t Kazuki in a coffin like all the others? They all were potential oracles, what was different about him?

“I’m an oracle and I managed to win their trust, that’s why I can move freely,” replied Kazuki, feeling how wary the other was.

He wasn’t going to judge him, he certainly would have felt the same way if he came across an oracle walking freely in the hallways while all the others were locked in coffins. However, they really had no time to waste. He knew they had little time left before a guard came back to the control room. If Yuu and Yutaka weren’t gone by then, Kazuki didn’t want to even think about what would happen to them. He had had enough trouble taking the authorities off Byo’s back, he knew he wouldn’t manage this time if those two were caught.

“I know you don’t have any reason to trust me considering I’m not with all of them,” he said, gesturing at the coffins. “But you really have little time left until a guard comes back to the control room, you should leave.”

“We can’t,” replied Yuu. “We need to find Takanori, where is he?”

“Why would you want to see Takanori?” frowned the brunet, straightening up.

“Why does it matter to you? Just tell us where he is,” retorted Yutaka, rolling his eyes.

“He’s in the other room,” sighed Kazuki, pointing at the closed door. “I don’t see what you’d want to do with him, he’s out for a while.”

“What do you mean?” asked the raven, confused.

Kazuki shook his head and walked to the door, taking a set of keys out of his jacket pocket. He unlocked the door, feeling the others’ eyes in his back. He blinked a few times as he was blinded by the brightness of the completely white room. All the spotlights were set on Takanori, who lay on a hospital bed. The brunet waited for the other two to walk in, already foreseeing their reactions to the boy’s appearance. He didn’t know himself what it was exactly that made them age like this, but it definitely was something in the serum every new oracle was injected. Moreover, Takanori’s whole body was marred. Kazuki could only guess where all those scars came from, having noticed some on a few of the other oracles too.

“This isn’t Takanori.”

He looked sideways at the raven, keeping himself from rolling his eyes. That he looked older should have been a hint as to how Takanori would look too.

“Takanori’s supposed to be fifteen, this person is older than that,” uttered Yutaka, walking around the bed, his gaze set on the sleeping blond. “And he has black hair, not blond,” added the brunet, frowning.

“I honestly don’t have time to even try to explain what happens in here, guys,” groaned Kazuki, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t even know myself what actually happens to us.”

Yuu stared at the brunet, his eyebrows knitted together.

“How can you not know what’s happening to yourself?” he asked.

“All I know is that the oracle before Takanori was taken in died prematurely, and there was something weird about her death, too,” explained Kazuki, looking at the ECG machine. “Takanori was harvested two weeks after her death. One way or another, the authorities came to the conclusion that he was one-of-a-kind because he had unusually strong visions for a kid of his age.”

“Why did they send him back to his mum then? And in coma? They told her he was brain dead,” frowned Yutaka, looking up at the other brunet.

“That, I don’t know. One thing’s for sure though, he’s not brain dead. Look at the screen behind you,” said Kazuki while Yutaka turned around. “That’s his brain right now. As you can see, it’s working perfectly fine.”

Yuu walked to the bed, cautiously grabbing his childhood friend’s right hand. He had electrodes all over his chest and forehead, and an IV stuck in his left forearm. Although he looked older, Yuu could still see Takanori in the teenager lying in front of him. He still had the same soft facial features. His lips had become plumper and his skin paler though, but it didn’t quite surprise Yuu. The skin tone definitely was due to not going out at all, being in a coma for ten years, and for the rest he must have been taking after his mother. Yuu somehow wanted to see his eyes, he wanted to know if they were still amber, or if they had changed color just like his hair. However, as he let his gaze roam further over Takanori’s body, Yuu’s stomach churned. The blond was covered in scars, most of them white, meaning they were old. But a few were new, the raven could see it by their reddishness.

“You’ve seen him, now leave, please,” said Kazuki, breaking the silence that had slowly settled in the room.

“We didn’t come here just to see him,” whispered Yuu, glancing over his shoulder at the brunet. “We’re here to take him with us.”

Kazuki’s eyes widened, his gaze going from Yuu to Yutaka, not quite sure he had heard the raven well.

“We’re fleeing this place, and Yuu absolutely wants to take Takanori so…” Yutaka said, trying to find a rational explanation, although there was none. They were risking their life for someone who maybe didn’t even remember them.

The pierced brunet bit his lower lip, glancing at the door behind him. Their plan was kind of crazy, but it wasn’t exactly impossible. Although they probably hadn’t thought about it, they had chosen the right time, most of the guards would be in the fourth district to make sure nobody left it or that no disturbance happened. However, fleeing with Takanori wouldn’t be that easy. Kazuki knew for a fact that the blond wouldn’t wake up anytime soon, he actually wasn’t even sure that he would wake up on his own. Takanori would be a burden more than anything else to Yutaka and Yuu.

“He would slow you down,” said Kazuki, looking Yuu in the eye. “There’s no telling when he will wake up. How would you carry him around once your car runs out of gas? How would you keep him alive if he can’t feed himself?” he asked, crossing his arms over his chest. “For all I know, if you take Takanori away while he’s still in this state, he might stay like this forever.”

“Why does it matter to you?” asked Yutaka, walking up to him.

“I don’t want you two to get caught because of him,” sighed the pierced brown.

“We won’t. The moment we’re out, you know they won’t follow us,” retorted Yutaka, rolling his eyes.

Kazuki looked away with a **_tsk_** , knowing the other brunet was right. The moment Byo had set a foot outside, in the contaminated area, the guards had given up on following him. Truth be told, he didn’t quite understand the way the authorities operated. There were more and more records of the outside world being survivable, the levels of radioactivity had lowered to an extent that someone in good enough health could adapt. He didn’t know that when Byo and him had tried to run away, but after months of snooping around, he had ended up coming across all those reports on the outside world. This discovery actually was the only thing that kept him sane, that made him believe that Byo was still alive, somewhere in the outside world.

“I don’t want him to be here,” murmured Yuu, looking down at Takanori from the corner of the eye. “I want him to have a life, and not be stuck in here as an oracle. He hasn’t lived at all, he was barely five when he was taken away…”

Kazuki stared at the raven, conflicted. He couldn’t say he didn’t understand his feelings, because he did; unlike the rest of them, Takanori really had had no chance to taste life. However, Kazuki could also feel jealousy creeping into his heart. They were doing this for Takanori only, they hadn’t thought about trying to save one of the others, they hadn’t even tried to look for them, they hadn’t tried to look for **_him_**. Why did they even care about the blond? For ten years they had lived without looking for him, and all of a sudden they decided to save him?

The pierced brunet clenched his fists, looking away. He couldn’t let his jealousy get the better of him, if at least one oracle could get out of this hell, then so be it. Although he knew that if Takanori escaped, it would mean hell for the remaining oracles, it was still better that way. There was something about Takanori’s visions that made the authorities more paranoid and authoritarian than usual. Nobody exactly knew what it was that the blond had foreseen when he was a child, but it somehow had triggered something in the upper social strata.

Kazuki sighed, looking back at his childhood friends.

“Take the electrodes off, we gotta be fast,” he said, tying up the blond to the bed so there would be no risk for him to fall while they moved the wheeled bed. Moving him to a stretcher would take too much time and maybe it wasn’t the best solution, considering the blond was only half-dressed.

Yuu gaped at his friend, although his lips slowly spread into a grin. He knew Kazuki wouldn’t stop them in the end. He turned around and ripped the electrodes off the blond’s body while Yutaka stuffed his duffle bag with infusion bags.

“Hurry,” uttered the pierced brunet, opening the door once again. “We don’t even have twenty minutes left before someone comes back.”

Moreover he also had to find a way to make it look like he had nothing to do with this. Yutaka went behind the bed to push it while Yuu was already walking out.

“We can’t take the usual lift, we could come across a civilian,” Kazuki said, getting in front of them to lead them through the maze that formed the inside of the trunk.

“How are we going to get to the base of the tree then?” asked Yutaka. “We can’t use the backstairs with Takanori in this bed.”

“There’s another lift,” replied the pierced brunet, pointing at the end of the hallway they had just turned in.

“How come you know the place so well? It’s huge, I’m pretty sure even the employees don’t know it that well,” said Yuu, running next to Kazuki.

“I’ve been looking around, a lot,” replied the oracle, smiling smugly.

“And why haven’t you escaped then? You probably know when you have the highest chance to succeed, you could be out and free right now,” said Yutaka, frowning slightly.

Kazuki looked over his shoulder for a second, his smile faltering.

“Without me, they could all be dead already…”

Yuu slightly slowed down, biting his lower lip. He wasn’t sure there was another place closer to hell than this. He had noticed the marks on Kazuki’s arms. He maybe wasn’t scarred like Takanori, but all those needle marks… Kazuki wasn’t completely safe, no matter how much he tried to make them believe that he had the authorities’ trust.

“Be patient with Takanori,” Kazuki said as he opened the lift’s doors with a swipe card.

Yuu and Yutaka glanced at each other, puzzled.

“What do you mean?” asked the brunet while he pushed the bed inside.

“You don’t know what he’s been through,” replied the pierced man, pressing on the lowest level’s button. “I don’t know myself,” he sighed as he watched the doors close behind Yuu. “But I’m guessing that he wasn’t well treated when he was conscious, no matter his age. So please, when he wakes up, be patient with him.”

Yuu softly smiled, running his fingers through the sleeping blond’s long hair.

“Don’t worry about that, we’ll take care of him properly,” he assured.

Kazuki slightly nodded, noticing that they had reached their level. He was silently dreading that there would be a guard or a mechanic, if there was one, he had no idea what they would do, how they would react. Thankfully though, as the doors opened, he directly picked up on the silence that filled the garage.

“Do you guys actually know how to drive?” asked the pierced brunet, walking out of the lift.

“Yutaka does,” replied Yuu, following him. “He learnt with…” his voice trailed off, not wanting to go any further. He was pretty sure Kazuki would get who he didn’t want to mention, and by the understanding look he received, he didn’t need to worry about that.

Yutaka stayed silent, pushing Takanori’s bed. He knew what Yuu was doing, never mentioning his father. It was a sensitive subject, and he was somewhat grateful to the raven for being so considerate. However, at the same time he knew he couldn’t forever avoid mentioning the man. He unfortunately had learnt some useful tricks from him after all.

“Alright, you should be using this model,” said Kazuki, opening the doors of a black SUV. “It’s one of the last models that came out before the catastrophe. It doesn’t make much noise and it’s one of the rare cars here to have a completely full tank.”

He started folding down the seats in the back with Yuu’s help while Yutaka tried to fold the legs of Takanori’s bed. The brunet wasn’t quite sure it would be safe to put Takanori like that in the back of the car, but they didn't really have a choice. An SUV definitely was the best choice to go out there.

“Where will we go though?” wondered Yuu, looking at the huge garage door. “We’re fleeing, but we have no idea where to head first.”

Yutaka looked up at his best friend, surprised Yuu hadn’t thought about it before.

“Byo and I were planning on going south, towards Tokyo,” said Kazuki, walking up to Yutaka so they could carry Takanori inside the car.

“That’s what I thought we’d do,” replied Yutaka as he crouched down to lift the bed. “From what I read it’s the only city that could still offer some sort of real shelter, it wasn’t as destroyed as the rest of the country. Maybe there are even some people left there.”

Yuu stared at his best friend, feeling slightly silly for not thinking of that before. He was the one who had made the decision to leave after their discussion with Takanori’s mother, yet he hadn’t thought much outside of getting a car to flee.

“Why don’t you come with us, Kazuki?” he ended up asking after the two brunets were done fastening Takanori’s bed in the car.

“As I said before, I’m what’s keeping the others alive,” said the pierced young man, pushing on a button to open the garage door.

Yuu couldn’t help but feel bad for leaving Kazuki behind. The brunet would be watching friends leaving for the second time, and yet again he would stay behind to save their asses.

“Don’t worry about me, Yuu, I’m fine here,” assured the brunet with a smile, patting the raven’s shoulder. “Now hurry, I still need to go back upstairs.”

“We’ll try to get you all out of here,” said the raven, hugging his friend.

“Don’t promise something like that. I don’t want you to come back here, it’s too risky for you,” retorted Kazuki.

Yutaka shook his head, smiling softly. Getting that out of Yuu’s head wouldn’t be an easy task. He was pretty sure that Yuu felt bad for leaving, for having a chance to escape this place while the others stayed behind. Although they still had to discover if they could really live in the outside world, perhaps they wouldn’t make it out there with the radiations.

“I’ll keep an eye on both of them if this reassures you,” said Yutaka, putting his worry aside, hugging Kazuki this time.

“I count on you. I don’t want those two to come back here as long as oracles are treated like objects, they wouldn’t make it through, especially not Yuu,” whispered the pierced brunet in the other’s ear.

Yutaka nodded as they broke apart, noticing from the corner of the eye that Yuu had taken a seat in the car.

“This is all I managed to gather on oracles,” said Kazuki, handing a file to the other brunet. “I didn’t have time to go through all of it yet, but maybe you’ll find a way to help Yuu with his visions, and also wake up Takanori.”

“You really think Takanori won’t wake up on his own?”

“I can’t tell for sure.”

Yutaka hummed while he put the file in his backpack.

“Thank you, for everything,” he said, quickly hugging Kazuki again before getting in the driver’s seat.

The pierced brunet slightly smiled, watching the car drive off in the outside world, soon disappearing into the woods.

“You’re welcome…” he whispered, closing the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I finally decided to post the second chapter *hides* Unfortunately, I lost the third one so... I can't tell for sure when that one will come. I know what I have to write, but I need to find the motivation to write it all back, and that won't be easy tbh. My exams are soon over though, so I'll have more time to write!  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter ;)
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♡


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native speaker.

“You didn’t really get your answer,” said Yutaka, squinting slightly as they entered the woods, switching on the lights of the car.

“We shouldn’t have left him behind,” whispered Yuu, looking over his shoulder as the tree disappeared.

He grabbed Takanori’s hand that was on his side and slightly squeezed it, feeling tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. He understood that Kazuki wanted to stay behind to take care of the other oracles, but he was putting himself in danger this way. Yuu wasn’t even quite sure how their friend would find a way to make it look like they had escaped without any help, without **_his_** help.

“It doesn’t feel right to leave him behind, I know,” sighed Yutaka, glancing at Yuu.

He didn’t like abandoning Kazuki behind any more than Yuu did, especially that he really could have left with them. However, the other had been so adamant about being the only person keeping their friends alive, Yutaka just couldn’t go against the pierced brunet’s decision. He didn’t seem in a bad state after all, besides the needle marks on his arms, he still looked quite healthy, so Yutaka wanted to believe that the other, and the oracles, would be fine. He had to believe it otherwise it would haunt him until they found a solution to get them all out of the tree, which he honestly wasn’t sure they’d ever find.

“I don’t think we should drive at night,” muttered the brunet, avoiding a pothole.

“Shouldn’t we actually get away from there as much as possible?” frowned the raven, looking at his best friend.

“We should,” sighed Yutaka. “But it’s pitch black, the forest is so dense, we don’t even get moonlight. I’ve literally no idea where I’m driving, Yuu, for all I know we could be driving straight to a cliff or something, we’re not that far from the coast after all.”

“But we’re on a road right now, can’t you drive the further you can, as long as we’re on this road we should be fine, right?”

Yutaka glanced at Yuu for a second before setting his eyes back on the road. He knew they were heading south, but that really was all he knew. He understood that Yuu wanted to get away from the tree, he wanted it too, but he really didn’t want to risk anything. The authorities couldn’t follow them, if there was something he was sure of, it was that. They didn’t send anyone out of the tree, no matter how the radiation levels might have dropped, they still wouldn’t risk it. Considering they hadn’t tried to follow Byo, they wouldn’t follow them either.

The brunet heaved a sigh, tapping his forefinger on the gear stick.

“Alright, I’ll keep on driving as long as the road doesn’t change direction, if it does, we’ll stop and wait for the sun to rise.”

He didn’t look at Yuu, but he could feel his eyes on him, and then one of the raven’s hands slowly slid over his own that was still on the gear stick.

“Thanks,” whispered the raven, a soft smile stretching his lips.

“Thank me when we’re out of here,” replied the brunet, squeezing his best friend’s hand.

He really had no idea what Yuu was going through at the moment, he wasn’t a potential oracle after all, but after seeing their friends in those glass coffins, and especially after seeing Takanori in that room, linked to all those medical devices… There was no way in hell that he would let the authorities take Yuu too. Being an oracle was a curse, not a blessing. They became tools, they weren’t human anymore, not in the government’s eyes at least.

They kept on going for another hour, but then the brunet noticed a road curve. He had noticed that the raven had been dozing off, and he wished he could have kept on driving, giving Yuu some rest, but he didn’t want to risk going in the wrong direction. Moreover they had a limited amount of fuel, so he couldn’t waste it in any way.

“We’re still not out of it.”

Yuu had noticed the change in Yutaka’s driving, which had stirred him up from his sleepy state. He knew this forest was big, nature had taken over a lot of territory after the catastrophe, but he didn’t think it would take so long to get out of it, especially by car. They had been on the road for at least two hours.

“There’s a change in the road direction, it might be nothing but it’s better to make a break anyway, we need to sleep, tomorrow’s going to be a long day,” said Yutaka, slowing down.

“Are we just going to stop in the middle of the road and sleep though?” wondered the raven.

“I’ll pull over and we’ll sleep one at a time. I’ll keep watch for now, you can sleep,” replied the brunet, turning off the ignition.

“Keep watch? Yutaka, we’re all alone here,” snorted the other.

The brunet shot a stern look to his best friend.

“Really now, Yuu? This is our first time out of the tree, we’ve no idea what’s waiting for us in the outside world,” he started, noticing how the raven seemed to be shrinking in his spot. “And did you forget that we’ve someone in a coma?” he asked, pointing at the blond who lay in the back of the car.

“Sorry, I just…”

Yutaka raised a hand, gesturing the raven to stop talking.

“Just go to sleep, I’ll wake you up when your time is over,” sighed the brunet, grabbing his backpack.

He barely heard Yuu’s small approval before the raven curled up, his back turned to Yutaka. The brunet shook his head while pinching the bridge of his nose, he might have slightly overreacted. He could only assume that the stress this day had caused and the tiredness were finally catching up with him.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, taking out Kazuki’s files.

He didn’t receive any answer, and when he hovered over the raven to look at his face, he noticed his best friend was already fast asleep.

“Well, that was fast,” he thought out loud, settling back in his seat.

He looked down at the several files Kazuki had handed to him. There were five of them and each one had a title; one was on the tree in general, three on the oracles, and one on Takanori in particular. Apparently Kazuki had also slid in a map with the most recent changes in Japan’s topography. Yutaka put it over the dashboard and decided to open one of the files on the oracles. None of them were very thick so he guessed not much could be found with Kazuki’s access codes, but it was still better than nothing. However, the more Yutaka read the documents, the more he came to the conclusion that the government didn’t seem to know everything about oracles either, or it was a very well kept secret, and only a few people knew about it. A lot of the documents had parts blacked out after all, he could only guess those held crucial information.

After reading the files, Yutaka still couldn’t tell where oracles came from, how some of the people in trees could foresee the future and others couldn’t. Was it genetic or was it due to experiments? Or was it maybe due to the environment? Radiations could maybe have caused it after all. There didn’t seem to be any answer in the files Kazuki had given him, which meant Yutaka couldn’t help Yuu with his visions. The brunet wished to find a solution so Yuu would get rid of them, because they were more akin to nightmares than dreams. He didn’t really know what the raven saw, but he knew it was taking a toll on him. Over the years he had withdrawn into himself, he was more discreet and he tried not to talk too much about his visions.

The only thing Yutaka had learned through those files was that the authorities, or at least the people responsible for the oracles, triggered the visions with drugs. This explained the needle marks on Kazuki’s arms, and it might also explain the aging as it seemed all the oracles ended up looking older than they really were. Takanori looked like a young adult instead of a teenager for example, Yutaka could only guess that it was because he had been injected the drugs for a long time already, longer than Kazuki and the other oracles they had seen in the glass coffins.

Yutaka turned around, looking at his childhood friend. He looked peaceful, which made the brunet wonder if he had any visions in his current state. The brunet wasn’t quite sure how a medically-induced coma worked, but he sort of hoped the blond wasn’t dreaming. From what he had managed to get out of Yuu, visions were most of the time gruesome, there barely was anything positive in them. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be trapped in those dreams, to have no escape route, to have nobody to talk to about what he foresaw.

When he looked at the dashboard, the brunet noticed it had already been over three hours since they had stopped. He rubbed his eyes, feeling his eyelids close on their own.

“Yuu,” he whispered, slightly touching the raven’s shoulder. “It’s your time to keep watch.”

He watched with a soft smile his best friend waking up, making a sound akin to a mew as he stretched.

“How long did I sleep?” asked the raven, yawning.

“Three hours and a half,” replied the brunet, changing Takanori’s infusion bag.

The raven’s gaze wandered to the files that were spread in front of them.

“What are those?” he asked, frowning.

“Kazuki gave me some files before we left, but there isn’t much in them. Oracles are a well-kept secret,” sighed Yutaka, running his hand over his face after he had put the empty infusion bag in a separate part of his duffle bag.

“Not even an explanation on why we exist?” murmured the raven, looking down at his hands.

The brunet shook his head, lying on his side. This position wasn’t the best, but considering how exhausted he was, he knew he’d fall asleep the moment he closed his eyes.

“You can go through them if you want, maybe you’ll see something I missed,” he said, putting his hand over his mouth as he yawned.

“Alright,” replied Yuu, watching as Yutaka closed his eyes.

The raven grabbed one of the files, trying to stop his hands from shaking. He closed his eyes, inhaling sharply before exhaling, he needed to calm down. He was out of there, he was safe, the authorities weren’t after them, they were free, **_he_** was free. It was hard to believe that they really had done it, that they really had fled the tree, leaving everything they had behind them for the unknown. Somehow he felt selfish, leaving his family behind like this. His sister had directly understood what was going on when she saw him packing, and she had told him to leave as fast as possible and to not look back, but he knew that his family would get in trouble. Yutaka’s family would get away with it because the brunet wasn’t a potential oracle, but the raven was, and he had fled the night of a harvest.

He looked at the file he had picked and gaped at it, reading the title. Kazuki had created a file on Takanori? Yuu let out a shaky breath and looked over his shoulder at the blond before opening the file.

_**Subject TM-0201** _

_**Subject’s status: oracle** _

_**Subject’s medical condition: artificial coma** _

The raven started reading the file, skipping the few pages that were only pictures. He wasn’t quite sure he could handle seeing the changes in Takanori’s appearance, already seeing the state he was currently in made the raven’s stomach churn. Takanori’s marred skin and blond hair were enough of a hint as to what had happened over the years.

According to the documents Kazuki had managed to gather, Takanori had mostly been at home after the authorities understood he couldn’t help them much, but they still took him away from his parents every month for a week, until a year ago. A year ago they stopped taking him for medical examinations because they thought they had found a better oracle than Takanori, but apparently the blond’s visions still were more accurate than any oracle before. The following paragraphs were blacked out, meaning this was a confidential report Kazuki had managed to access, although he couldn’t completely break the code to have all the information. The only word that wasn’t blacked out was “spirit”, which didn’t quite help Yuu figure out what those paragraphs could possibly be about. He guessed it was the reason why Takanori was a better oracle, but Yuu himself had not idea why and how oracles existed, so he had no idea what it was that triggered visions.

The raven groaned, running a hand through his hair.

“Spirit? What the hell is that?” he muttered, dropping the file in his lap.

He looked outside the window, they were surrounded by nature. The road they were on was the only human trace left, although it was obvious that it was from a long time ago. Yuu was actually quite surprised that it was still possible to make out the road, he thought that after so many centuries, there wouldn’t be any human traces left, considering human beings lived in trees and hadn’t been out of them since the nuclear catastrophe.

He looked up the trees, wondering if there were any animals left. He guessed wild life had somehow survived, but the forest was still, there was absolutely no noise at all, not even the rustle of the leaves.

He shook his head and went back to reading Takanori’s file. Apparently, Takanori’s vision that had made his mother take him to a doctor was the most important one he ever had, in the eyes of the government at least. Unfortunately, because he was only a child, he hadn’t managed to explain it and the authorities had decided to take the matter in hand. For years they tried to trigger that vision, to make Takanori remember it as he had ended up forgetting it, but nothing worked. They tried a week every month during those so-called checkups, but it never worked so they just put him back into an artificial coma, knowing very well that if they let him go back to his family fully conscious, he would tell his parents what the authorities made him endure.

“Does he even want to be conscious again after everything he went through?” whispered the raven, staring at his childhood friend.

Being an oracle definitely was a curse, not a blessing, there was no denying it. However, going through Takanori’s file didn’t quite help Yuu figure out how to wake up the blond. The only idea he could come up with was that because he wasn’t in the tree anymore, Takanori wouldn’t be injected whatever medicine or drug the authorities used to put him into an artificial coma. He could only hope that this would be enough for the blond to wake up, and that they had enough infusion bags until then.

Yuu closed the file and put it back with the others, taking the map instead. They were heading to Tokyo, but the priority right now was to get out of the forest. In the tree everything was perceived differently, he never had thought that it would take so long to go through the forest. He thought that in less than two hours they would be out of it, but they had driven for over two hours and he couldn’t see the end of it.

While he opened the map, the raven thought about how Kazuki had gathered all this. Was Kazuki really not planning on fleeing the tree? The pierced brunet couldn’t know that Yutaka and Yuu would decide to flee that day, they hadn’t even thought about it before that. The files on oracles weren’t exactly necessary, but the map…

Yuu closed his eyes, muffling a sob with his hands. They had taken away Kazuki’s chance to escape, to find Byo. The least they could do now was to find back Byo and to figure out a way to help Kazuki and their friends get out of the tree safely, they owed him that.

The raven looked down at the map, trying to figure out where they were. It somehow wasn’t that difficult because Kazuki seemed to have drawn a route on the map with a highlighter. Yutaka and him had both thought about heading to Tokyo, so Yuu guessed it was safe enough to use the itinerary Kazuki had come up with.

“He really should have come with us.”

The raven almost shrieked when the brunet next to him spoke. He hadn’t noticed that Yutaka had woken up. He directly calmed down when his best friend started laughing though.

“This isn’t funny, Yutaka, I thought you were asleep!” he grumbled, punching the other in the arm.

“You haven’t even noticed that four hours went by since you woke up, have you?” snorted the brunet.

Yuu stared at his friend, dumbfounded. Four hours? He looked at the time on the dashboard and his eyes widened. It really had been four hours, had he been so lost in thought?

“Anyway, I can see that Kazuki was ready to flee,” sighed Yutaka, taking the map from Yuu’s hands.

“He was, and we took that away from him. We took away his freedom,” replied the raven, looking away.

The brunet only hummed in response. He felt guilty about that too, but he knew Yuu was way more affected by it. Yutaka respected Kazuki’s decision to stay behind, especially that he now knew that if the pierced brunet really wanted to leave, he could. He probably knew the tree better than any other civilian, maybe even better than the authorities.

“Alright, I think we can leave now,” uttered Yutaka, closing the map.

“Really?”

“Yeah, we can follow the road, it should lead us out of the forest.”

“So we could have kept on going instead of pulling over for eight hours…” frowned the raven.

“Yuu, as much as I understand you wanting to get as far away as possible from the tree, we still needed to sleep,” sighed the brunet. “I was exhausted, and you weren’t any better, you were falling asleep while I was driving.”

The raven opened the mouth to retort, but his best friend was right, it had been a good call to take a break.

“Eat that and then we’ll move again,” said the brunet, handing a cereal bar and an apple to the raven, already munching his breakfast.

“Don’t act like my mum,” groaned the raven, still accepting the food.

“Sometimes it really feels like it…”

Yuu rolled his eyes, although he couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. It was a complain, but at the same time he liked the way Yutaka took care of him, he couldn’t deny it.

“Did you find something in Takanori’s file? I didn’t read it,” asked the brunet, turning the key in the ignition.

“Yes and no,” sighed the raven, taking a bottle of water out of his bag.

Yutaka glanced at him, puzzled.

“Well, to make it short, Takanori was conscious one week per month for nine years,” started Yuu. “During that short lapse of time, the authorities would try to make him remember a vision he had when he was five, or to trigger it again.”

“Which explains the scars…” sighed Yutaka, getting back on the road while Yuu took a sip of water.

“Yes. Apparently he’s like… A super oracle. His visions are way more accurate than any other oracle before him, but because he was so young, back then he couldn’t really explain the one the authorities are interested in. The explanation as to why his visions are so good is blacked out though, the only word left in those paragraphs is **_spirit_** , and I’ve no idea what that could mean.”

“So we basically stole the government's favourite oracle?” wondered Yutaka, grinning as he noticed they were reaching the end of the forest.

They could actually have kept on driving last night, they weren’t so far from the end of the woods, but then they would have been in the open to rest, so maybe taking a break in the forest was for the best.

“You could say so,” snorted the raven. “I also came to the conclusion that Takanori might wake up on his own as he isn’t in the tree anymore.”

“How so?”

“Well, they had to use specific drugs to put him into an artificial coma, so I guess that because he’s not there anymore, the drugs will get out of his system at some point,” explained Yuu, looking at the blond.

“This makes sense, we just have to wait and see, I guess,” said Yutaka, tapping his forefinger on the steering wheel.

The raven nodded, looking straight ahead. He could see standing far in the horizon one monster of glass and steel; without a doubt Tokyo’s tree, built in Tokyo Bay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry it took so long for me to update this! As you know, I actually had the third chapter written, but I lost it so I had to rewrite everything... Which definitely wasn't funny at all, especially that I didn't have a draft for this anymore. But I managed, somehow, and I hoped you enjoyed this new chapter!
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♡


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native speaker.

“Why did you think about going to Tokyo and not somewhere else?” Yuu asked, stroking Takanori’s left hand.

“You know I’ve always been interested in the outside world,” replied Yutaka. “Obviously as a civilian I couldn’t access most of the information, but there has always been rumours.”

“I know about the rumours, but that’s all they are, rumours,” frowned the raven.

“There’s always some truth to rumours, Yuu. And maybe there aren’t people actually living there, outside of trees, like the rumours say, but I bet it’s actually possible to live in the Old Tokyo,” said the brunet, staring at the tree they had in sight since they had come out of the woods. “The authorities have kept a lot of things secret, they might even have lied about certain things, so… Why not this?”

Yuu hummed, letting go of Takanori’s hand. He brought his knees up to his chest and folded his arms over them, his gaze set on Tokyo’s tree that kept on getting bigger as they approached their destination.

“So what? You think some people **_never_** actually lived in trees?”

“Maybe,” answered the brunet with a shrug.

“Yutaka, that’s impossible. You know just like me how high the radiation levels were right after the catastrophe, nobody would survive that.”

“There’s no way trees were the only way to live through the catastrophe, Yuu, there had to be other places,” retorted Yutaka, heaving a sigh. “You followed history classes just like me, you know that everybody was expecting a catastrophe at the time, but there’s no way everybody could make it to trees in time. They didn’t expect the catastrophe to be caused by Mother Nature, but still, I’m pretty sure some people had built their own shelters. They thought a war was about to break out after all.”

“But it has been centuries… I just don’t get how they would have survived. The land must have been barren, the water toxic…” started Yuu.

“Listen, I can’t say for sure that we’re going to come across survivors, but we’ll manage no matter what,” sighed Yutaka. “Or do you want to go back and become like Takanori and our friends?” he asked, glancing at Yuu from the corner of the eye.

The raven froze in his seat, nibbling his lower lip. He hadn’t meant to sound like he was having doubts, because he wasn’t. He was just curious, Yutaka had thought about going south, so had Kazuki and Byo. He thought that they had more knowledge than him on the outside world and the state it was in, but he now realised that the difference simply was their point of view. They all had access to the same information, but Yutaka, Kazuki and Byo tried to stay positive while Yuu only dwelled on all the issues he could think of.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound like I doubted you,” he whispered, looking at his entwined fingers. “If it weren’t for me, you’d still be peacefully living in the tree.”

“Don’t be silly, I’d be leading a boring, uneventful life if it weren’t for you,” replied Yutaka, smiling softly at the raven. “I know for now it’s hard to picture how our future will be like, we don’t even know what will happen in ten minutes, but we’ll be alright. It might be tough, but it’s still better than you becoming an oracle for the authorities.”

Yuu smiled back, relieved to know he hadn’t upset his best friend. He trusted Yutaka more than anyone, the brunet had left everything behind just for him, just so he could get a chance at actually having a normal life, as normal as it could be for a potential oracle at least. He had actually risked his life for that, considering he wasn’t a potential oracle, he was disposable to the authorities. The raven didn’t want to think about what would have happened to Yutaka if they had been caught by someone else than Kazuki.

He looked up, discerning the outline of the Old Tokyo. They had been on the road for almost eight hours since they had left the forest. He hadn’t thought it would take so long to reach Tokyo from their home tree, but then again, he hadn’t taken into account how nature had changed everything. They were on an old motorway now, but before that they had to go through woods again and drive through muddy plains.

“I didn’t think there would still be so many skyscrapers,” uttered the raven.

Yutaka only nodded in response, his stomach churning. He had a bad feeling. He didn’t know what it was, but his guts were telling him that they weren’t completely safe yet. However, he didn’t voice his concerns. The brunet didn’t want to worry his best friend, he knew the raven was already stressed as it was, he didn’t want to add more pressure, especially that there might as well be nothing. He knew he was slightly overprotective of the raven, and maybe that was just this side of him messing with his mind.

The brunet kept on driving, glancing a few times at Yuu, but the other seemed to be enthralled by the Old Tokyo. He slightly smiled, taking in the face of the city he had gotten to know through pictures until now. Nature was everywhere, covering the streets, walls and roofs; some trees had even partly grown inside buildings. However, the brunet’s smile faltered as they entered the centre of the city, his bad feeling just worsening. He had the impression that they were being watched, just like in some areas of their home tree. The heavily overcast sky and the skyscrapers didn’t help in this matter, only making everything more ominous. A chill ran down his spine as he thought he saw a light flicker from the corner of his eye. Was his mind playing tricks on him?

“This is so different from the tree! I never thought I’d actually see buildings like these one day,” excitedly said Yuu, looking around.

This time Yutaka didn’t smile, pretty sure it wasn’t his imagination. They were being watched. They weren’t alone.

“Wait! There’s light in that building, look, over there! There really are people outside of trees, you were right!”

The brunet looked up at the building Yuu was pointing out, his eyes slowly widening. The whole seventh floor of a building seemed to be lit up, just like Yuu had said.

“Hold Takanori!”

He barely had time to yell it that he had to break harshly or he would have run over a few men who were standing in line right before the car. He noticed from the corner of the eye that Yuu had grabbed the sides of Takanori’s bed, keeping it in place as much as possible. The brunet shook his head and looked back at the men, freezing in his spot when he noticed some of them had guns pointed right at them.

“Yuu, don’t move,” he said after he gulped.

His bad feeling wasn’t his mind playing tricks on him after all, they really weren’t safe yet.

“Yutaka, what’s going on?” asked the raven, his voice shaking as his eyes widened when he noticed the strangers surrounding the car.

“Just don’t do anything,” replied the brunet, stepping out of the car when a masked dirty-blond man gestured him to do so.

“Yutaka!” exclaimed the other, his head snapping to the driver’s side when he heard the door open.

The brunet shook his head, staring gravely at his best friend, and closed the door behind him. He really hoped Yuu wouldn’t do anything reckless, they were outnumbered and there was no way they could do something against armed people. They had to cooperate.

“We don’t mean any harm,” said Yutaka, raising his hands in the air.

“We don’t know that,” retorted the blond, his gun aimed at the brunet’s head.

The brunet breathed in heavily, eyes locking with amber, almost golden, orbs.

“You can search the car if you want, there’s nothing in there, no weapons.”

The masked blond snorted, an amused glint in his eyes, while the other men chuckled.

“We’re not worried about you having weapons,” he replied, still not putting his gun away. “We know you come from a tree, the Old Tokyo is the only city where you can still find cars outside of trees.”

“Then what’s the problem?” asked Yutaka, glancing at Yuu to check that the raven wasn’t doing anything. “We’re just looking for a safe place to live.”

“How is your home tree not safe for you? Isn’t it suicide for you, tree people, to go outside?” asked the blond, now staring suspiciously at Yutaka.

“They weren’t safe there,” sighed the brunet, slowly pointing at Yuu and Takanori. “Just look at the blond, he’s in a coma, the authorities put him in that state. I couldn’t risk my best friend ending up like him.”

He tried not to move when the dirty blond took a step towards the car.

“Trees aren’t as safe as the authorities want us to believe,” continued Yutaka, slowly turning around to observe the man walk around the car.

“What tells me that you aren’t just spies?”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Spies? For those arseholes? They’re killing us!” exclaimed the raven, getting out of the car to face the masked blond.

“Yuu!”

Yutaka couldn’t believe Yuu had lost control so easily, they were in the crosshairs, they had to keep calm or they would be dead in a matter of seconds. Yuu knew it, as much as he might have been offended by the dirty blond’s accusation, he should have kept his calm.

“Feisty,” chuckled the blond, the muzzle of his gun now right against the raven’s forehead.

“We didn’t get out of there to be threatened again!” growled the raven.

“Yuu, provoking them won’t help,” Yutaka intervened, still not daring to move.

“Your friend is right, you might want to take it down a notch,” said the dirty blond, locking eyes with the raven.

The brunet frowned when he noticed the man putting his gun away, still looking right into Yuu’s eyes. Yuu seemed to have frozen in his spot, not even blinking, and so had the stranger. He suddenly grabbed Yuu’s jaw with his left hand and made the raven tilt his face up.

“You’re an oracle?” asked the dirty blond, his eyebrows knitted together.

Yutaka cocked his head to the side, not quite sure how the other could tell that just by staring into Yuu’s eyes. As far as he knew, there was no physical difference between oracles and other people, and he had spent enough time with the raven to know that.

“A potential oracle,” replied the raven, glaring at the dirty blond. “He is a real oracle, he was picked by the council,” he said, pointing at Takanori.

“There’s no such thing as potential oracles, you’re an oracle or you’re not. The moment you have visions, you’re one,” uttered the man, letting go of the raven to now look at the sleeping blond.

“It doesn’t work that way in trees,” retorted the raven, stopping the blond from opening the trunk. “You’re not opening this, I’m not letting you touch him.”

“Really now? You know there are still half a dozen guns pointed at you, right?” asked the blond, pushing Yuu away.

He opened the trunk against Yuu’s protests, staring at Takanori’s peaceful face. At the same time Yutaka grabbed Yuu by the hand, whispering to him not to do anything. They had to show those people they meant no harm, fighting against them wouldn’t help them.

“Wait a minute, did you take him away from your tree’s authorities?” asked the blond, looking back at them. “You said he was chosen by the council.”

“We couldn’t just leave him behind,” replied Yuu. “He’s our childhood friend, he’s been used by the authorities for ten years, he has the right to a normal life.”

The dirty blond stared at them, stone-faced.

“There’s no way I’m letting you stay here.”

“What?”

Yutaka’s heart sunk when he heard the blond say those words. He had been expecting them, he couldn’t deny it, but it still left him helpless, he had no idea what they were going to do now. The Old Tokyo was all they had, it was their only hope.

“He’s precious to them, I can’t risk my people’s life for him, or for you,” explained the blond, gazing at Takanori, then at Yuu. “The brunet can stay, he’s not an oracle, but you two… I just can’t risk it.”

Yuu had to hold back a sob at those words. Being an oracle definitely was a curse. Even in the outside world he still was a sort of outcast. How could he possibly put any of them in danger? All he had were visions, nothing else.

“Reita, what are you doing?”

Both the brunet and the raven turned around when they heard a new voice as well as footsteps; a tall honey-blond man was walking in their direction.

“Keeping this place safe, dumbass,” replied the dirty blond, rolling his eyes. “Those three just arrived. Two of them are oracles, one actually already used by their tree’s authorities.”

“You know that’s no reason to refuse them shelter,” retorted the honey blond, reaching them. “We’ve welcomed runaway oracles before.”

“Uruha, you know just like me that it isn’t safe to welcome new people. The radiation levels–”

“They’re not low enough for them to send people out, you know it perfectly, they won’t risk it,” Uruha cut him off, now standing right next to Yuu. “They have no idea what it’s like to live outside anymore, they might even get killed before reaching us.”

Yutaka and Yuu glanced at each other, not quite sure what the other meant. Getting killed before reaching the Old Tokyo? What could possibly kill them? They hadn’t seen anything on their way here, not even animals. There had been no signs of life until now.

“Look at this one, then, and tell me everything’s alright with that tree’s oracles,” groaned Reita, looking at Takanori while he spoke.

Yuu stared at the honey blond, hoping this man would convince the other that letting them stay wouldn’t cause any problem. He knew that at some point they would run out of gas if they had to keep on moving further, and then he had no idea what they would do, especially with Takanori in a coma.

“He’s not just any oracle.”

Both Yuu and Yutaka’s heads shot up when they heard the honey blond utter those words.

“Wait, what are you doing to him?” asked Yuu, rushing to their sides when he noticed Uruha was leaning over Takanori’s face.

“Look at his eyes,” said the honey blond, letting the dirty blond take a look.

Yuu tried to push them away from his childhood friend, but the resistance he encountered from the honey blond left him defeated. Was he even human? The man hadn’t budged, not from an inch. Nobody was that strong.

“You know just like me that it could be to our advantage to have him here,” said Uruha when Reita straightened up.

“He could also be our fall,” retorted the dirty blond, folding his arms. “He grew up in a tree, and apparently he hasn’t been conscious all that much as he’s been in this state for ten years, he probably doesn’t even know what he is.”

“We can help him, he wouldn’t be alone here. Most oracles in trees don’t know what’s happening to them anyway.”

The dirty blond took off his mask, sighing heavily. Yutaka raised an eyebrow when he noticed the man still had a piece of clothing covering his nose, what was up with those people covering their faces?

“If something goes wrong, it’s on you,” ended up saying Reita, glancing one last time at Takanori.

“You’re such a pussy,” snorted the honey blond, removing the black scarf that covered his lower face, before turning around to look at both Yuu and Yutaka. “You can all stay.”

The raven’s eyes lit up at those words.

“However, for safety reasons, and mostly to keep this one at peace,” he continued, glancing at Reita from the corner of the eye, the dirty blond giving him the finger at those words. “You won’t be allowed to go around freely as long as your friend didn’t regain consciousness.”

“We understand,” said Yutaka, bowing.

Yuu mimicked the brunet’s moves. He was grateful, they wouldn’t have to keep on driving, but at the same time it didn’t feel right just yet. They weren’t free, and that was what he wanted more than anything.

“Actually, we don’t know if he will even come round,” said Yutaka, helping Reita take the bed out of the car.

Yuu looked around to see the other men walking away, which made him sigh in relief, they weren’t targets anymore.

“He will, don’t worry about that,” replied Uruha, smiling softly.

“What were you talking about earlier, about Takanori not being just any oracle?” asked Yuu, taking his stuff out of the car.

Uruha and Reita exchanged a quick look before the dirty blond replied.

“You’ll know when he wakes up.”

The raven frowned, not quite satisfied with that answer. He didn’t really understand what it was that made Takanori so special in everybody’s eyes. Moreover, he didn’t know how Reita had discovered he was an oracle just by looking in his eyes, as far as he knew there was no difference between an oracle and someone like Yutaka, they all looked the same.

He glanced at Yutaka, hoping the brunet would say something, but his best friend only shrugged.

“We can’t really do anything about this,” said the brunet, grabbing his bags. “We have to content ourselves with what we get.”

Yuu heaved a sigh, knowing Yutaka was right. They were alive, and maybe they weren’t completely free yet, but they still had a place to stay, which was better than nothing. Uruha seemed to be more open to dialogue than Reita, and he also seemed more willing to help than the dirty blond. The raven understood why the other hadn’t been so keen on letting them stay here, they were strangers after all, he couldn’t expect those people to trust them like that. The only thing that seemed to have made the dirty blond reconsider his decision was Takanori. Was the reason to Reita’s change of heart also why the authorities of their home tree had taken Takanori away from his family when he was so young?

“Now, follow us,” said Uruha after ordering someone to drive the car to a garage.

“Why won’t you explain to us what Takanori is?” asked Yuu, following the honey-blond man while Yutaka stayed close to Takanori, keeping an eye on what Reita was doing.

“Do you know why you’re an oracle? What makes you different from your friend?” asked the honey blond, glancing at the raven from the corner of the eye.

Yuu looked down and shook his head, he still had no idea, Kazuki’s files hadn’t been of much help in that matter.

“Then you have a lot to learn,” sighed Uruha, opening the door to the building in which Yuu had noticed light earlier. “And considering how your unconscious friend seems to be around your age, I’m pretty sure he has no idea either.”

“He was taken away when he was five years old,” replied Yuu, holding the door for Reita and Yutaka while Uruha typed in the code for the lift.

The honey blond frowned, casting a glance at Takanori once again. He was five when he was taken away? That didn’t make sense, the blond didn’t look like a teenager at all, sure he seemed to have a petite frame, but that was all. What was really going on in trees?

“I know what you’re thinking,” said Yutaka, having noticed the face the honey blond was making. “We don’t know for sure what made him age faster either,” he sighed, rubbing his temples with his forefingers. “I’m guessing it’s drugs.”

“Drugs?” repeated Reita, pushing the bed in the lift before the others walked in.

“A friend helped us escape,” started the brunet, heaving a sigh. “We noticed that he had needle marks on his arms, and he looked older than he was supposed to be, too. The new oracles are injected drugs to make their visions more vivid as well as more frequent.”

“If you check Takanori’s arms, you’ll see needle marks,” continued Yuu, brushing a few strands of hair off the blond’s face. “We didn’t really check our other friends that were kept in there, but I’m pretty sure that they had some too.”

“Other friends?” frowned Uruha.

Yutaka and Yuu looked at each other before looking down at Takanori.

“You’ve no idea what’s going on in trees,” said Yuu, a shiver running down his spine just by thinking about all the glass coffins.

“I can’t imagine it being that bad,” said Reita, rolling his eyes.

“It’s perfect as long as you follow the rules and don’t question the authorities,” started the raven, glaring at the man. “And being a potential oracle means living in the fear of being picked during a harvest. People like me and Takanori are never safe in trees. Even if the council says it’s an honour to be picked as an oracle, it’s not, really,” he explained, his voice threatening to break at any moment.

“Civilians don’t know it, hells, we wouldn’t know if we hadn’t decided to run away, but Takanori’s current state is probably how oracles have always been. They become objects, they’re stripped from their liberty, from their life,” continued Yutaka, feeling like Yuu was reaching his limit.

“That’s not the way oracles should be treated,” muttered Uruha, his amber eyes darkening as he walked out of the lift.

“Your friend here didn’t want us to stay though, because Yuu and Takanori are oracles,” stated Yutaka.

“We have our reasons,” sighed the honey blond, gesturing them to follow him in a barely lit hallway. “And you better be grateful,” he continued, turning on his heels to glare at them, his eyes now pitch black. “I’m playing nice right now, but I could still throw you out of here. Trust me when I say that you were lucky to get here in one piece.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm honestly not quite happy with this chapter, but all this had to happen and well... I can't just keep on changing it, haha. I hope you enjoyed it! It maybe could have been longer, or shorter, there wasn't really a proper way to end it, so I decided to finish it this way. I guess I might have raised a few questions with this update, haha.
> 
> Btw I've no idea when I'll update next, I'm moving to Germany on Monday and it's gonna be so hectic for the following weeks... Just bear with me please ♡
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♡


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not a native speaker.
> 
> I wrote this mostly listening to [Panic Room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro51SuLyh8A) by Au/Ra, in case you want to listen to something while reading.

“I can’t believe they locked us in and took Takanori away from us!” grunted Yuu, pacing around the room.

“Yuu, please,” sighed Yutaka, rolling his eyes. “You should at least be grateful they actually put us in some sort of flat and not a cell,” he pointed out as he observed the other from his spot on the couch.

“It’s pretty much the same, we can’t get out of here,” retorted the raven, slumping down next to his best friend.

“We can’t exactly blame them for being careful, they don’t seem to trust tree people, and that’s exactly what we are,” stated the brunet matter-of-factly, running a hand through his hair.

“But we fled our tree,” muttered the other, looking down at his clenched hands, gritting his teeth.

“That doesn’t mean they should trust us. Who knows, maybe they had people claiming they had run away before too, but they actually had ulterior motives for getting here.”

The raven glanced at his best friend from the corner of the eye, a slight frown twisting his face. He hadn’t thought about it that way. The authorities behaved like it was impossible to survive in the outside world, but maybe they knew some people had survived. Considering what they did with oracles, he wouldn’t be surprised that if they managed to catch outsiders, they would use them for experiments to discover how exactly they could have survived the nuclear catastrophe.

“What I’m really curious about is how they know so much about oracles and how Reita could tell you’re one just by looking at you,” continued the brunet, tapping his fingers on the armrest absentmindedly.

“And how the hell they survived the radiations,” added the raven, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window from where he sat; it seemed like a storm was coming.

“It’s probably linked,” sighed Yutaka, closing his eyes

As much as he didn’t feel completely safe yet, it definitely felt good to not have to look over his shoulder for any sign of the tree authorities following them. He could already feel his body shutting down because of how hectic and stressful the past two days had become.

The brunet glanced at his best friend who seemed to be lost in his thoughts before closing his eyes again, a soft, content sigh escaping his lips. Going out in the outside world was something he never thought he’d live long enough to experience, but here they were, miles away from their home, with no idea what would happen next. However, all that mattered to Yutaka was that Yuu was safe, at least from the council. They would handle whatever came next.

He was slowly drifting off, his head tilting back, when the door was violently opened, making both him and Yuu jolt up in alert.

“I thought they were messing with me, but you **_really_** are here!” exclaimed the newcomer.

“Byo?”

Both young men stood up, not quite believing their eyes. The blue-eyed brunet quickly hugged them, smiling wildly.

“How the hell did you two get out? Especially you, Yuu,” he asked, letting go of the raven.

Yuu slightly smiled, feeling uneasy. He wasn’t sure how to tell the brunet that they had managed to get out only thanks to Kazuki’s help. Kazuki and Byo were like the two faces of a coin, they were inseparable ever since they were children, both of them being oracles maybe had brought them even closer as they grew up. They both understood each other in a way that Yuu knew Yutaka would never understand him. Tree people often compared visions to vivid dreams, but that was a poor comparison. There really was no word to describe what visions were like, although if Yuu had to choose, he would call them nightmares rather than dreams. Never had he ever seen anything positive in them, and he was pretty sure it was the same for the others. Moreover, what he saw usually didn’t make much sense and he had given up on trying to explain his visions to his best friend after a while. If he couldn’t grasp what was happening, how could Yutaka help him after all? He didn’t want to burden him with the atrocities he witnessed.

“Kazuki helped us.”

Yuu glanced at Yutaka, his heart clenching painfully when he noticed the other’s solemn expression. The raven perfectly knew what his best friend was thinking, but he really hoped it was just the brunet worrying too much.

“Kazuki..?” Byo’s eyes widened, not quite sure he had heard well. “Kazuki can’t have helped you, he was shot when I escaped,” he uttered, his surprised expression morphing into a mix of confusion and doubt.

“Well, he _**did**_ help us, Byo,” replied Yuu, his eyebrows knitting together. “I don’t know what happened when you two tried to escape together, but he was very much alive yesterday.”

The raven went to his bag to get the files the pierced brunet had given them, handing them to his skeptical friend.

“Look, there are some handwritten notes on the map,” he said, urging the other to look through the files.

“This still doesn’t make any sense, I saw him get shot, I saw him fall to the ground,” muttered the brunet, staring at his best friend’s handwriting, stone-faced.

Yuu and Yutaka glanced at each other, both at a loss for words. Kazuki hadn’t mentioned anything about being shot, just that he had taken the authorities off Byo’s back eight months ago, and then that he was the one who kept their oracle friends alive, whatever that meant. Now Yutaka couldn’t help but wonder if they should have asked more questions, he had had a weird feeling concerning the pierced brunet the moment he had stepped in the oracle room, but he had brushed it off, at that moment, all that mattered was escaping without getting caught by someone.

“Anyway,” shrugged off Byo, a small, obviously forced, smile stretching his lips. “I’m glad you two got to escape and get here safely!”

“I still don’t get this,” groaned Yuu, sitting back down on the couch. “Getting here safely? There’s literally nothing out there and the authorities wouldn't follow us, no matter what their analyses show.”

“Oh trust me, there’s plenty out there,” laughed the other, walking to the window while Yutaka just kept standing, his arms now crossed over his chest, his eyes not leaving the other brunet. “It’s just not exactly how you’d imagine it based on the books and films we have in trees.”

“How so?” questioned the raven.

“Animals in some areas survived the radiations, but their genes mutated, I guess, to adapt to the environment they had to live in. I’m not a biologist though, so really this is just me guessing,” he explained, turning around to look at both his childhood friends. “I’m sure you also wonder how Reita could tell you’re an oracle, am I right?” he smiled.

“Definitely suspicious about that,” said Yuu, grimacing just at the thought of the dirty-blond man.

Byo laughed, shaking his head.

“He’s like us, not quite human.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” asked Yuu, looking at his best friend in confusion, but only to get a shrug in response. Yutaka had no idea what the other meant either, although he had always wondered what made oracles what they were.

“Yuu, do you really think you’re human? With the visions you’re having?”

“Well, how should I know? The council doesn’t seem to know much either from what we’ve gathered,” replied the raven, an eyebrow raised. “The only thing I noticed while reading through the files Kazuki gave us is the word ‘spirit’, but that doesn't mean shit on its own,” he grumbled, frustrated.

“Oh it means a lot, trust me on that,” grinned Byo.

 

* * *

 

“I still believe this is a bad idea.”

“Shut up, Reita,” snarled the honey blond, unbuckling the unconscious blond oracle from the stretcher. “Did you really think it was a good idea to let **_this_** boy go?” he asked, taking him in his arms to move him to a proper bed.

“Honestly? Maybe, yeah,” retorted the other, shrugging.

Uruha glared at his best friend as he uttered those words. He really hated how detached the dirty blond could be sometimes, especially for matters like these. The boy in his arms was more than a simple oracle, letting him go would have been a mistake.

“You can glare at me all you want, I won’t change my mind,” sighed Reita, crossing his arms over his chest.

“He will need your help, though,” stated the honey blond, pulling the covers over the short blond. “With your mother gone, you’re in charge of the medical section.”

“Uruha, I already told you my sister would be in charge, not me.”

“I’m not giving you a choice here, Reita,” retorted the other as he straightened up. “Your sister won’t be able to take care of him as well as of the others. You heard his friends, oracles are drugged in their tree. Look at him, based on what his friends said, he’s been drugged for ten years. Can you imagine how strong his withdrawal might be? Because I can’t, and I don't think your sister would be able to handle it.”

Reita stared at the unconscious blond, heaving a sigh as he sat on the chair next to the bed. Uruha was right, his sister and him had the same knowledge, but they didn’t have the same approach. She was more humane than him, she had a hard time dealing with human suffering, although she knew she had to put her feelings aside to help others, which she managed to do. But drug withdrawal? He could see why Uruha believed that he was more fit for the job. Moreover, he was almost certain that it was a drug of the tree authorities’ own making, which meant he couldn’t even foretell what the blond would be going through. It might have been a mix of already existing drugs, but that would only make it even harder for the oracle to get through the withdrawal.

“I can’t promise you that he’ll make it, though,” he informed his best friend.

“Because his intake is suddenly stopped?”

“Yeah.” sighed Reita, running a hand through his hair. “I’ve no clue what drugs they injected him, but considering how long he’s been on them… It’s going to be a shock for his body to not get his usual dose.”

Uruha hummed in response, leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked at the dark clouds looming over their heads. He understood why Reita was telling him that already, the chances of the unconscious blond not making it were high, much higher than him surviving.

“They used those drugs to trigger the visions, can’t that help you?” he asked, turning his attention back to the dirty-blond man.

“Honestly, I don’t think we have anything that could help. I wouldn’t be surprised if it were a mix of tranquillisers and hallucinogens, but who knows what kind of drugs they developed over the centuries in there? And what the hell made him age like that too? He’s supposed to be fifteen, right?” The honey blond confirmed with a nod. “But he looks twenty, so I really can’t tell what he was injected.”

“So…”

“It won’t be pretty,” sighed Reita, running a hand over his face. “It will be both physically and emotionally draining on him.”

Uruha stared at his best friend, noticing the look in the other’s amber eyes, a small smile spreading his lips. No matter how much of an arsehole Reita could be, it always was for their own safety. He had a soft heart under all those layers, the honey blond had always known that, but he tended to forget it because of how Reita always had his walls up. He had grown cold and distant over the years following his mother’s disappearance, which sometimes made Uruha worry that he had lost the boy he used to know. However, the way he looked at the unconscious oracle at the moment gave the honey blond some hope.

He was brought back to reality when Reita slammed his fist in the wall right next to him, making the honey blond wince.

“How the hell can they treat oracles that way?” he growled, clenching his teeth.

Uruha rounded the bed and laid a hand on Reita’s shoulder, feeling the tremors that shook the other’s body. He glanced at the wall, slightly groaning as he watched the cracks that spread like a spiderweb around where his fist had collided with the concrete. Reita really had to control his strength sometimes.

“Don’t they know what caused the catastrophe centuries ago? If she knew what they do to them…”

“As usual, they probably forgot about it,” sighed the honey blond, now massaging the other’s shoulders. “But I’m sure she knows what’s going on, she will remind them of her existence, one way or another. Humans tend to forget that Mother Nature is the one in power, not them, and that they’re once again **_all_** responsible for the catastrophe.”

Even people who had survived on the outside had somehow forgotten that what had made the world blow up like it did centuries ago wasn’t exactly due to a race for power between the great powers. Humans had forgotten about the existence of Mother Nature back then, associating her to some weird beliefs from a bygone era, and had polluted the Earth so much that even **_she_** had been spoilt.

Uruha had learnt from tree defectors that they were taught that war tore the world apart and that it had all gotten out of control. Nuclear power plants, which had kept on spreading all over the world even after minor catastrophes –at least compared to the one that disfigured the face of Earth– occurred over and over again, had been used as weapons of mass destruction by the great powers according to tree officials, although the truth was that it was Mother Nature who had somehow lost control and retaliated by eradicating over 80 % of the world population, shattering her own self at the same time.

However, some people still knew the truth. After talking about it with Byo, Uruha had learnt that some tree people still knew that it was Mother Nature that had caused their destruction, the two boys they had just welcomed being part of the few who didn’t just believe everything they were told. The problem was that it was a minority, most tree people didn’t dare question their authorities. Uruha would be a liar if he said he didn’t dread what would happen in the future. Mother Nature might have imploded, but she still lived among them, and he feared the consequences of the authorities’ treatment on the oracles. They were her children, she wouldn’t let it slide forever.

The honey blond removed his hands from the other’s shoulders when he stood up and quirked an eyebrow quizzically.

“Anyway… I’m still not sure this is a good idea, Uruha,” he uttered. “If he had been conscious, maybe, but now? We don’t know what he knows exactly, if he even knows anything at all. He was a child when their authorities took him away and put him in this state.”

“And I told you that we would help him, just like the other ones who fled. I won’t change my mind, Reita,” stated Uruha, walking to the door. “He is staying here, and you’re responsible for him.”

“Listen, I get why you want me to take care of him, but I don’t have time to look after a child,” retorted the dirty blond. “Because that’s what he is,” he added when Uruha glared at him. “He might have physically aged, but he probably is still a child in his mind.”

“We don’t know that,” countered the other, opening the door. “Now, I need to talk with the sentries, so keep an eye on him, I’ll come back when I’m done,” he added, disappearing in the dimly lit hallway before Reita could say anything.

He grunted as he sat back on his chair, glaring at the unconscious blond. He grabbed one of the smaller man’s hands and looked at his arm, feeling his stomach churn. He was fuming just thinking about what the tree authorities had done to him when he was just a child. They hadn’t just drugged him, they also had tortured him, it was obvious from the scars he had spotted on the blond’s body when Uruha had taken him off the stretcher, and it just infuriated Reita to no end.

His reticence to let this stranger stay wasn’t irrational, he had his reasons and they were well-founded, but he also understood why Uruha wanted to take him in. Nature’s spirit lived in every one of them, so in a way they were all linked. However, the truth was that it could get corrupted the same way Mother Nature had been centuries ago, and that was something that worried Reita. His job was to protect his people, and the unconscious blond could be a threat depending on how what he had been through in his tree affected him. They had learnt how to control themselves in the outside world, they could take advantage of everything that came with their “special” condition, but tree people didn’t know anything about it, or at least, they didn’t do anything to help oracles in their own societies. They didn't even know that there was more than just visions to being an oracle.

“It’s not against you,” whispered Reita, tightening his grip on the other’s hand. “I just have to think about my people first. I will help you, Uruha isn’t giving me a choice, but if I feel like you’re too dangerous for–”

He cut himself off, his gaze falling on the hand he was holding, confused. Had he just imagined it? Were his nerves tingling with exhaustion and giving him this impression or…

**_No._ **

It twitched, again. His head jerked up when he picked up on a small sound, a faint whimper. Disbelief was written all over his face when he locked eyes with ever-changing orbs, a chill running down his spine because of how intense the other’s gaze was.

_“It’s coming.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who's not dead and finally finished the chapter for this fanfic? I can't believe it took me almost a year to update this, damn me and my muse. This took forever to write but I'm glad I finally finished it!
> 
> You're FINALLY getting some answers concerning oracles and what they are (kinda)!
> 
> Kudos and comments are always appreciated ♡


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